Video:5 Easy Exercises at the Playground

Transcript:5 Easy Exercises at the Playground

Hi I'm Katherine Lee for About.com and this is John McGuire from PrimalNY.com.  Today I'm going to show you five easy exercises you can do while your kids are at the playground. 

Do One-Legged Squat Exercises at the Playground

All right the first exercise I want to show you is a one-legged squat. What we're doing here is we're going to stabilize on one foot. Your other foot is going to be up, back on a bench about a foot and a half to two feet back. And would you ladies please come down. We're going to keep pressure in the heel here.  Now stand up. You're pressing through the heel, glute, and quad. We're working on stability and strength at the same time. 

Try One-Legged Dead Lift Exercises at the Playground

The second exercise we're going to do is called the one-legged dead lift. It's another stability movement. What we're going to do is we're going to plant our one foot. Let's plant on our left foot, and we're going to lift our right leg back. We're going to slightly bend that right knee. And just come down as low as you can. Stretch that front hamstring and then stand up. It's important again to keep that heel in contact with the floor, and try to remain as stable as possible as you come down. Go as low as you can to get a stretch in that front hamstring. Stretch out the back of that front leg, then stand up pulling with that muscle. 

Slingshot Push-Ups Are Good Exercises at the Playground

The third exercise we're going to work on here is called, I like to call it a slingshot push-up. So what we're going to do, we're going to put our hands on the bench. You could put your hands on the floor also, but for today, we're going to do it with our hands on the bench. We're going to sink our hips down into a squat.  Bend the knees, come down, and then we're going to stand up and push up.  Come back down, stand up, and push up. This movement's great because you're working on core stability, you're working on chest strength, you're strengthening those pushing muscles, as well as the quadriceps and the butt.

Do Reverse Plank Exercises at the Playground

Fourth exercise I got for you today is the reverse plank. Now in a reverse plank we're holding our hips up high, hands are on the bench, squeezing our shoulder blades together, keeping our cores really tight, and we're holding this position.  Now if you feel like this position is easy for you to hold, you can add a leg lift. So ladies will you add the leg lift.

Try Knee Crossover Exercises at the Playground

Last exercise that we're going to do is a knee crossover in a plank.  All right so we're in a front plank position over the bench. And we're going to cross our knee. We'll bring our right knee to our left elbow. So ladies bring it over, get that rotation in the core. Bring it back, and then now the other way. So this is a great trunk rotational movement. 

Thanks for watching.  For more, go to About.com.